Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i TopGear Malaysia

Editor editor@topgear-malaysia.com 2019 has been a peculiar year for the Malaysian automotive industry. On the sales front, carmakers are struggling to repeat the heights of 2018 made possible by the post-election tax holiday. The change in governance and impending revision to the National Automotive Policy (NAP), which remains unannounced at time of writing, imposed a different set of challenges altogether. But things are starting to look a bit more promising as we approach a new decade. 2020 will be a definitive year for Honda, which continues to be the best-selling foreign make in the country even though it hasn’t launched a brand new model locally since the Civic Type R was introduced back in November 2017. Everything ‘new’ since then has been either a facelift or a spinoff of an…

MIKE FLEWITT CEO, McLaren Automotive 1 It’s often said your cars are too similar to one another. Rivals make both front- and mid-engined cars. Before you ask, McLaren will not make an SUV. But I get really pissed off the people say we’re making the same car again and again. Look at the Speedtail, the GT, the LT, the Senna GTR. Completely different. 2 All V8 turbos though, and that carbon tub? It’s absolutely not true to call it the same tub for each car. Yes we’ve had a V8 since the 12C, but with two blocks, five different heads, hybridised and not, with outputs from 540bhp to 1,100bhp. We don’t sell engines to anyone else. Our stuff is our stuff. Well, OK, the P1 had a brake booster that…

01 BMW M2 CS AND M3 STAYS MANUAL BMW M boss Markus Flasch is on a roll, confirming the next M3/M4 will get a manual gearbox, and a more hardcore M2 CS is coming down the pipe, too. Somebody get that man a beer. 02 MERC VISION SIMPLEX It’ll never make production, but pays homage to the first ever Mercedes – the 35 HP from 1901. Bonnet straps, Chesterfield quilting and nautically inspired steering wheel do it for us. 03 BUGATTI TYPE 35 FOR £27K You’re looking at a 1:3-scale, 3Dprinted electric Bug replica that’s yours for the price of a low-spec Ford Focus. In a dark corner of our brain, this makes perfect financial sense. 04 ASTON DBX DETAILED Sound the new DBX information klaxon! We now know the…

While it seems unlikely, leading Japanese watchmakers Seiko and Godzilla, the undisputed King of the Monsters, share an unlikely but common history. As the story goes, Godzilla’s cinematic debut in 1954 saw him emerging in Ginza, the birthplace of Seiko. Here, the monster king proceeded to wreak havoc, even destroying Ginza city’s famed clock tower rising above the Wako store, which happens to be a retail establishment of Seiko’s that opened in 1952. Fast forward to the present and both these Japanese icons have merged once again, only this time, it’s in the form of a special celebratory timepiece. Based on the Grand Seiko, it celebrates both the 20th anniversary of Seiko’s signature Spring Drive movement, as well as Godzilla’s 65th anniversary. Harnessing Seiko’s Spring Drive Caliber 9R15 that prides…

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER THING… There is that, yes. But in terms of generational DNA, they are VW Golf-based derivatives. What you’re looking at is 45 or so years of technological advance and market-driven taste change. In 1974, we got a neat Giugiaro-designed small coupe from the bones of a Golf (pretty much everything bar the drivetrain was re-engineered, mind), in 2017, we got a T-Roc small SUV. Sigh. THERE WERE MORE MODERN SCIROCCOS, THOUGH? There were. Originally there were two generations of angular Scirocco, the first being the one you see here (’74 to ’81) and the Type 2 from ’81 to ’92. Then there was the more rounded rebirth in 2008 which ended production in 2017. Properly quirky Golf-spawn probably died with the…

First a note on the decline of the hatchback. Twenty years ago, these three – the Vauxhall Astra, Ford Focus and Mazda3 – sold a combined 1.24 million cars in Europe. Ten years later, that number had halved. By last year, it had almost halved again. Doom, meet gloom. Maybe not a reason to read much further, though. Maybe I ought to throw in some speculation around the next Focus RS or Mazda’s new atmospheric engine that breathes only atmosphere. Trouble is, I suspect both are figments of the imagination. The world has moved on (the Nissan Qashqai now outsells both the Focus and Astra in Europe), and the old-time big-hitters are left swaying against the ropes. None of these three adapted quickly enough or well enough. Ford still has…

TURBO BADGE Turbo has become a sub-brand, the fastest models in every model-line. Porsche didn’t want its EV to get special treatment BRAKES Charging power from the regen system is up to 265kW, so Taycan only calls on actual brakes when you really stomp on the pedal AERO Turbo’s Cd of 0.22 is lowest of any Porsche. Auto-adjusting rear spoiler, closable front intakes and aero-optimised wheels all help RAPID CHARGING Max charging power is now 270kW, but when the infrastructure improves, the Taycan is prepped to hit 350kW – fully charged in 15 mins…

“IT LOOKS AND OPERATES AS YOU’D EXPECT THE TOPMOST BMW TO” £123,435 FOR Refined, fast, with awesomely lavish trim and masses of tech AGAINST Lacks involvement and prettiness, but the Convertible provides some remedy Most powerful production BMW engine. There’s a good headline. Four-wheel-drive where you can switch out the front wheels, for driftular purposes. There’s another one. Carbon roof. Track mode… None of which gives any sense at all of what the M8 is actually like. I just can’t imagine anyone taking this to a track. Not like M2s, or M3s when they’ve got a bit secondhand and modified. Oh sure, at their limit, the M8’s high-speed acceleration, braking and cornering are forceful enough to demand a track to show off. So BMW thoughtfully provided one. But then forbade…

If superbikes were like kitchen knives, then it’s safe to say that the standard Fireblade is, for all intents and purposes, a lot like a good sushi chef’s knife. If so, then the Fireblade SP slotted above it is more akin to cutlery made for sushi masterchefs instead. In SP form, the ‘Blade’s is made slightly lighter at 195kg (kerb) and crucially much sharper. The latter comes from the adoption of cutting edge electronically-adjustable Öhlins suspension, beefier anchors from brake masters Brembo, as well as the addition of a Race Mode. It also comes exclusively dressed in the signature HRC tricolour paint In other words, the Fireblade SP is the machine of choice for the avid Trackday Spartan, provided they meet its equally beefed up RM114,999 base price of course.…

A very warm welcome to TG24. Literally, seeing as we’re in southern Portugal. For the past few years, we’ve called this Speed Week, but when we sat down to start planning, we were imagining it as the ultimate track day of this year’s greatest performance cars. Which was a bit of a mouthful, so we started stripping the concept back, until we were asking ourselves, “Track day? Why only day? What about night?”. And 10 seconds after that we were planning Le Mans. But where could we go that would allow us to run for 24 hours? Not Le Mans – that’s primarily on public roads. And what about noise restrictions? Those can be a killer. Step forward the awesome 24-hour-authorised, noise-limit-free Portimão circuit. And a plan designed to reflect our…

The idea of unlimited motorsport has been an avenue of fascination denied us since the death of the Can-Am series in the mid-Seventies. But as a way of marketing a new technology, especially one perceived to lack both speed and excitement, Volkswagen created the ID.R. It is the single most insane electric car ever made, Rimac included, because it can rearrange the driver’s vital organs like nothing short of a Formula One car. Actually, in a straight line, or at least from rest to 200kph, the leccy VW might have the legs on a current F1 car – it accelerates from standstill to 200kph in under five seconds. In the time your brain has acknowledged the violence of this 4WD-assisted mayhem and sent a strongly worded message to your voice box…

Hot hatchbacks normally arrive at Speed Week as the underdogs. The worthy ones with the big boots where we keep the melted chocolate bars. This year, the shopping trolleys are out for blood. A £35k fast Ford, a Mercedes A-Class that’s more powerful and expensive than a used Ferrari 360, and a Renault Megane without satnav, holes instead of foglights and priced to fight a Porsche Cayman GT4. Sure, the last A45 was a record-breaking nutter, and Renault’s no stranger to emptying out a Megane, but this feels like the moment when hot hatches really got gentrified. These cars take themselves seriously. So shall we. No getting bogged down in monthly payments or sweet spot semantics here. Which is the most heart-zappingly exciting hatch, period. The Focus ST is better…

DON’T PANIC, EVERY LITTLE THING IS GONNA BE… RUINED WHO: ELLIOTT WEBB, ART EDITOR I drove a used Tesla Model S to Bicester for a photoshoot. Nothing remarkable there – but, a 4am start on the day O2’s network (including all internet access) went down across the country wasn’t ideal. O2’s failure appeared to shut down the Tesla’s big screen, leaving me no way of getting to the satnav or even the button to turn the headlights on. After a worryingly older-than-old-school journey with no map to hand, I arrived, mildly traumatised from ‘my future is here’ trip in the Tesla, and attempted to Google how to reset it. It was then I discovered that no O2= no Tesla… REMOTE-CONTROL FUNNY WHO: TOM HARRISON, STAFF WRITER I was driving a…

Jack Rix “Charge is less like a car company, more like a Silicon Valley start-up… albeit in Acton. Hope the finished car is as good as their bacon rolls” Richard Pardon “Leaning out the door of a VW Sharan, camera inches from the track, two virtually priceless track cars looming, isn’t something I’ll forget in a hurry” Mark Riccioni “Woke up at 4am, six hours breathing dust, ears still ringing. At least I’m prepared to work in an old people’s home if photography doesn’t work out.”…

Just weeks before the launch of the Cheery Bong II, I am sad to report I’ve been relieved of my duties as lead test driver for Rong Un Motors. There were many reasons for this parting of ways. For me, it came down a difference in creative vision: my desire to make the Cheery Bong II the best-handling supermini on the market, against the Rong Un management team’s desire to ignore everything I suggested. For the Rong Un management – as they made clear in an extensive and, in my opinion, unnecessarily personal letter – it came down to the fact I’ve spent a year outlining their lax health-and-safety practice in a monthly column in TopGear magazine. Also the fact I attempted to claim $2,000 on pay-per-view adult movies as…

01 Porsche’s electric upstart Porsche isn’t afraid of carpet-bombing the apple-cart with a few controversial decisions. But now the age of the electric Porsche is here with the battery-powered Taycan, and that’ll have purists sobbing into their Porsche owners’ club polo shirts. Until they drive it, perhaps. 02 AMG’s turbo 4x4 hatchback Think AMG, think big V8s and a snakey trail of rubber once part of unsuspecting rear tyres. And then, in 2009, AMG got into hot hatches. With no room for a V8, and no justification for RWD, the resulting A45 took AMG into a new era of 2.0-litre turbo, AWD misbehaviour. 03 BMW’s front-wheel-drive hatchback When it launched the original RWD 1-Series, BMW’s marketing campaign fixated on how the only RWD car in its class was so well…

GADGET OF THE MONTH LEGO TECHNIC LAND ROVER DEFENDER This is no toy. Just like the full-size version has to please the die-hard nutters who want the ability to climb a vertical rock face and wade across the Atlantic Ocean, Lego Technic’s new Defender has packed in some serious functionality – so grown-ups can justify buying it too. Included is an independent suspension set-up, operable steering and a six-cylinder engine. The 4spd sequential gearbox is also super-detailed and can switch between low- and high-range, for those really steep staircases. Plus, you get the roof rack, winch and storage boxes from the options list. The best bit? Open the rear door and, when it’s riddled with mud and sand, you can simply hose it out. There’s a feature the new real-life…

Toyota is a pretty enviable company. Easily the largest carmaker from the Land of the Rising Sun, and always one of the top two manufacturers in the world, its products enjoy a bulletproof reputation for reliability and dependability. Ever since my high-school days where I used to carpool to afternoon tuition classes in a Corolla from the “Intial-D” Levin generation, Toyotas have always been the aspirational Japanese car for Malaysians. For many, it’s the last stop before swapping out the giant “T” badge for a gleaming tri-star emblem. Last Camry, first C-class, in other words – and it’s easy to see why the move from Nagoya to Stuttgart was often a logical one. In many ways Toyota was – and still is – the Mercedes-Benz of Japan. Both marques pride…

RM410,088 FOR Seven-seat practicality, improved electric range and immersive B&O audio setup AGAINST Lazy suspension and touchscreen-based UI; nothing beats physical AC dials For all the strides the auto industry has collectively made in building versatile seven-seaters and practical plugin hybrids within the past decade, few carmakers have come close to finding the sweet spot achieved by Volvo when it gave us the XC90 T8 Twin Engine a few years ago. And while the rest are still busy formulating the best way to bundle seven seats and a decently-sized battery into a single package, the Swedish outfit has gone on to improve the XC90 with better electric mileage, among other nice things. In the 2019 facelift, the XC90’s lithium-ion battery, which hides within the centre tunnel to accommodate an extra…

“THE RIDE IS MORE AGREEABLE THAN IN MOST SALOONS” £163,000 FOR Slightly calmer McLaren is amazingly good for long trips, yet loses little in recreational blasts AGAINST You can take a lot of stuff with you, but packing isn’t easy I’m suspicious of the idea of a GT, at least as they mostly are these days. Nearly all are front-engined coupes, which shows little progress from when the idea was born 90-odd years ago. They’re mostly powerful and heavy. The grand-touring job description includes twisty roads for fun, so they have harsh suspensions and noisy tyres, which spoils their showing on the motorways that a GT also needs to eat up. And, oddly, they often have risibly small boots. Small wonder people give up and get a fast SUV. McLaren…

HONDA INSIGHT From ¥3,322,000 FOR Refined look and feel, impressive NVH suppression and comfort AGAINST 1.5-litre mill might feel stressed when you’re out of juice HONDA CR-V HYBRID From ¥3,854,400 FOR Signature CR-V practicality, now with economy to match AGAINST Throttle response and noise insulation could be better “DESPITE THE COMPLEX UNDERPINNINGS, THE INSIGHT DRIVES WITH SURPRISINGLY NATURAL GRACE” Honda has come a long way since taking its first step towards electrification 20 years ago. Its first commercial hybrid powertrain, IMA (Integrated Motor Assist), won early adopters over with just a single 10kW electric motor in the first-generation Insight. Fast forward two decades and the same nameplate has matured into a full-f ledged hybrid which now packs a pair of motors capable of generating up to 96kW for short periods…

The term ‘Grand Touring’ is starting to take a whole new meaning. I say this given that we’re now in an age where Ferrari, Aston Martin and more recently McLaren, each have their own ethos about what a powerful and plush grand tourer should be. In the case of the famed Flying-B badge, though, things haven’t changed. And that’s great news. For as long as it has been around, the Continental GT has gone on to define this specific genre and, by the way things went behind the wheel of the second generation model featured here, it has only gotten better. Like before, this big coupe commands a lot of presence. Even as I carefully crawled out of the Etiqa Twins lobby where Bentley Kuala Lumpur is nestled in, the…

3 PM I’m two laps in, ratcheted into the Atom, concentrating hard and sweating liberally when I feel it. Weight on the outside corner of my eyelid, then the drip as sunblock-infused perspiration makes contact with cornea. Dull warmth builds quickly to an ocular emergency. I wipe frantically with my grimy fingers and make the situation 42 times worse. It’s both sides streaming now, vision terminally blurred, speed and racing line long since abandoned in favour of keeping it out of the gravel. And I can hear them coming… By this point I’m operating a two seconds open, two seconds shut policy – it’s the best I can do. That and pray they see the Atom in time to take evasive action. Sounds like the Jag first, full metal racket,…

Ferrari 1965, Ford 1966, Porsche 1982, Audi 2010. None of them did it as well as us. The formation finish. Yes, the Renault’s lagging slightly, but give us a break, we were dead on our feet. And, if we’re honest, slightly surprised with our top three. Twenty-four hours earlier, only the Megane had been on our radar as likely to make it through to the winner’s circle. Road-test radar also suggested the Porsche Cayman GT4 and McLaren 720S Spider would be up among the leaders, but neither excited us as much as they should – the McLaren because we’ve basically seen it all before (Tom Harrison’s point about built-in obsolescence is a very good one), the Cayman because we all had the sense that the first GT4 was that bit…

Local Mazda distributor Bermaz Motors is now accepting orders for the new CX-30, a crossover that sits between the CX-3 and CX-5 which also underpins the MX-30 electric SUV that broke cover at the recent 2019 Tokyo Motor Show. We’re still at odds with Mazda’s peculiar way with numbers, but Malaysians who aren’t very fond of the number four for superstitious reasons should find CX-30 a welcomed compromise between two of the brand’s smaller SUVs. Here, we’re given two engines across three model variants starting with the familiar two-litre SkyActiv-G engine good for 163bhp and 213Nm. The range-topper is a SkyActiv-D model, but it’s not the 2.2-litre mill we’re acquainted with. Instead, the CX-30 gets a 1.8-litre version of the torque-rich diesel engine that develops 114bhp and 270Nm of twist.…

WHO KNEW? The Jazz is a testbed for many upcoming features, such as Honda Connect and body-stabilising front seats Our Brit colleagues can’t seem to stop calling it a granny mobile, but the Honda Jazz appeals to a much broader audience in Malaysia. From college students who consider Sunway their capital of car modifications to the family man who can finally afford a step up from his aging Perodua – and everyone in between – the Jazz has had suitors of all ages in this neck of the woods since Honda Malaysia made it relatively affordable by putting it together in Melaka. And all eyes are now on the fourth-generation hatchback We set eyes on the 2020 Honda Jazz for the very first time at the recent Tokyo Motor Show…

Le Mans 2021 just got even more interesting. We’ve already heard Aston and Toyota say they’ll compete in the WEC’s new top-tier ‘hypercar’ class, and now Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus has thrown its hat in the ring too. SCG says it’ll field a pair of these SCG007s (no, this isn’t Bond’s next car) in the WEC, but also offer the car to privateer teams and build a “limited run of road-legal examples”. Power comes from a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6 of so-far unspecified origin sending 641bhp to the rear tyres, while a KERS system will deal a further 148bhp to the front. SCG is the project of Jim Glickenhaus – friend of TopGear, collector of many interesting Ferraris (including the Modulo, which we’ve driven) and now, builder of his own hypercars and…

Electric powertrain. Autonomous capability. Retro styling. An interior that’s also a ‘living space’. Crossover ride height. Hyundai’s not messing around – the 45 concept has every trend covered. And doesn’t it look… good? The best-styled Hyundai ever, you might wager. “Taking a look to the past is essential for moving forward,” says design boss SangYup Lee, telling us the 45 draws inspiration from the 1974 Pony Coupe Concept, year dot for Hyundai design and a surprisingly handsome, Giugiaro-penned Seventies wedge. The name refers to the 45 years that separate this concept from that Pony, but it also “owes itself in part to the 45-degree angles at the front and rear” which is the design direction we can expect from Hyundai’s fully electric cars. Cameras replace mirrors as part of a…

UNBELIEVABLE TEKKERS BYTON M-BYTE ELECTRIC SUV IS REAL SHOULD I CARE? Yes, because its 48-inch curved screen is the largest display ever fitted to a production car. You’ll be able to control from either the 7in one on the steering wheel, or the eight-incher in the usual spot. SHOULD I BE SCARED? Only if the person driving is easily distracted by a 48-INCH SCREEN IN FRONT OF THEIR FACE. SHOULD I TELL MY FRIENDS? If you can afford the £40,210 entry ticket, then by all means, gloat away. For that, you’ll get a single, rear-mounted electric motor putting out 268bhp and with 72kWh of battery capacity – meaning 360km of range. SHOULD I SPEND MY MONEY? Are you a tech nerd? Then, yes. Chinese-owned Byton’s strapline is “data power over…

Initially debuting as a concept earlier this year, luxury Swiss watch manufacturer Girard-Perregaux has turned its novel Laureato Absolute Rock into a limited edition reality. At the core of the timepiece is something called ‘Carbon Glass’. Unlike other manufacturing processes of other types of carbon, this innovation by Girard-Perregaux guarantees full water resistance. The manufacturing of Carbon Glass is achieved through a patented process involving extreme compression of the materials during an injection procedure at high temperature. As a result, Carbon Glass is aesthetically different as it features smooth and uniform texture on all its surfaces. Besides that, another innovation lies in Carbon Glass’s high resistance. In fact, it is 100 times more resistant than steel, yet doesn’t compromise on lightness with a density close to 1 when steel and…

RM91,900 FOR Looks, speed, agility, and ease of mastery AGAINST Not the most powerful or sharpest of the lot “Rrraaaarrrpp! Pop-pop-pop-pop…” went the GLA45 AMG that pulled up next to us at the lights in Shah Alam shortly after we concluded our photoshoot of the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade. Though we knew right away this was the universal sign of said super hatch’s driver wanting to “test power”, the invitation came as a bit of a surprise. We wouldn’t have been so puzzled by if we were driving something like the new Renault Megane RS featured a couple of months back. Nevertheless, as soon as the lights turned green, it took no more than 15 seconds for the ‘test’ to end with one clear winner. Let’s hope the challenger in the…

MY HAIR IS A SOURCE OF MUCH JEALOUSY AT TG TOWERS. Chiefly because I have some, while many of my colleagues do not. I am therefore much better at testing roadsters. Sure, I may not be able to get a McLaren 720S Spider as heroically sideways as Ollie Marriage, but I can certainly tell you how much of a mess you’ll look after a reasonably swift lap of Portimão. The answer, in case you too are follically well-endowed, is a bloody big one. Nothing here is as fast down the circuit’s more than half-mile-long pit straight as the 720S Spider. Not even the Porsche 935 or VW ID.R (which clatters almost immediately into its top-speed limiter). A good exit out of the final corner would see it sail past 282kph, but…

The 2019 Mini Clubman, which packs a wealth of subtle enhancements over the original second-generation model of the BMW era, is now on sale in Malaysia. The inimitable six-door hatch is offered locally in two highly-spirited variants, namely the Cooper S and track-focused John Cooper Works (JCW), priced at RM298,888 and RM358,888 respectively. Like the 2016 model, the new Cooper S Clubman derives 192bhp and 280Nm of twist from a two-litre four-pot turbo. However, the old eight-speed automatic makes way for the BMW Group’s new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission – a combination which enables a 7.2-second century sprint and 228kph top speed while keeping fuel consumption down to a respectable 6.2l/100km. Much of the Clubman’s new kit lie in minute aesthetic changes, such as new LED light signatures – including the…

The makers of the road-legal F1 supercar is now in the GT business with the aptly named McLaren GT. Launched in McLaren Kuala Lumpur’s brand new facility in Glenmarie, Shah Alam, recently, the McLaren GT arrives on a carbon tub chassis that also houses the brand’s four-litre twin-turbo V8. In the GT, the familiar M840 engine develops a hearty 612bhp and 630Nm of twist, both sent to the rear wheels via McLaren’s seven-speed Seamless Shift Gearbox (SSG). This propels the GT’s 1,535-kg heft from nought to 100kph in just 3.2 secs – with 200kph hit in 9.0 – before topping out at a claimed vmax of 326kph. Unlike the bulk of its rivals that sport 2+2 seating layouts, the mid-engined McLaren GT remains a strict two-seater instead, but it does…

ASTON MARTIN – BENTLEY • Prices accurate as of 15 November 2019 *Price not inclusive of SST BENTLEY – FORD FORD – INFINITI • Prices accurate as of 15 November 2019 *Price not inclusive of SST ISUZU – LEXUS LEXUS – MERCEDES • Prices accurate as of 15 November 2019 *Price not inclusive of SST MERCEDES-BENZ – NISSAN NISSAN – PROTON • Prices accurate as of 15 November 2019 *Price not inclusive of SST PROTON – TOYOTA TOYOTA – VOLVO • Prices accurate as of 15 November 2019 *Price not inclusive of SST…